Port Talbot Parkway is the main railway station for the South Wales port and steel town of Port Talbot, and also serves the housing developments and seaside town of nearby Aberavon.
One of the major stops on the line from Cardiff to Swansea, the station was built when the line was opened in 1850, but named Aberavon (the town and station later acquired its name from the Talbot family who developed the docks and the adjacent seaside settlement adopted the name Aberavon).
For much of the 19th and 20th century, Port Talbot was the centre of an extensive railway network serving the adjacent coast and the coal mining valleys to the north, but this has since shrunk to the main line, and a small network serving the steel works.
The station was rebuilt in the 1970s in its present form with a single island with 2 platforms, and the small, modern brick ticket office was rebuilt in 1980. It was renamed Port Talbot Parkway in the late 1980s when a large car park was built, with the aim of its becoming a local railhead.
The station has a small buffet, toilets and has step-free access to the platforms, via the level crossing, available only when the station is staffed (6-22h). The ticket office is only open until the early evening. It has a large car park, a taxi rank and cycle storage.
It is served by the main hourly London-Swansea inter-city trains operated by First Great Western, hourly regional trains between West Wales and Manchester, and the less frequent local trains from Swansea to Cardiff which stop at intermediate all stations. read more